HOUSEHOLD WATER USE IN THE KATHMANDU VALLEY: A DRY SEASON ... · WASH-MIA Rapid Report HOUSEHOLD...

HOUSEHOLD WATER USE IN THE

KATHMANDU VALLEY:

A DRY SEASON SURVEY

WASH-MIA Rapid Report

2 WASH-MIA Rapid Report Phase I

WASH-MIA Rapid Report

HOUSEHOLD WATER USE IN THE

KATHMANDU VALLEY:

A DRY SEASON SURVEY

Authors

Sadhana Shrestha, Yoko Aihara, Naoki Kondo, Sudarshan Rajbhandari, Arun P. Bhattarai,

Niranjan Bista, Futaba Kazama, Kei Nishida, Hari P. Timilsina, Junko Shindo

Interdisciplinary Center for River Basin Environment (ICRE)

University of Yamanashi

November, 2016


Household water use in the Kathmandu Valley: A dry season survey

Interdisciplinary Center for River Basin Environment (ICRE)

University of Yamanashi

4-3-11 Takeda, Kofu, Yamanashi 400-8511 Japan

WWW: http://www.icre.yamanashi.ac.jp

Tel: + 81 – 55 – 220 - 6869

© 2016 Interdisciplinary Center for River Basin Environment, All rights reserved

Citation:

Sadhana Shrestha, Yoko Aihara, Naoki Kondo, Sudarshan Rajbhandari, Arun P. Bhattarai,

Niranjan Bista, Futaba Kazama, Kei Nishida, Hari P. Timilsina, Junko Shindo. 2016. Household

water use in the Kathmandu Valley: A dry season survey, WASH-MIA Rapid Report,

Interdisciplinary Center for River Basin Environment (ICRE), University Yamanashi, Yamanashi,

Japan.

Corresponding email:

[email protected]

[email protected]

http://www.icre.yamanashi.ac.jp/

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]


Preface

Kathmandu Valley has been facing chronic insecurity of domestic water that is one of the inevitable

resources for people’s daily life. It is known that water supply from the public sector is much less

than the demand due to increasing population in the Valley and people have to rely on water from

other sources such as well, spring as well as purchased water. Water is sometimes low quality.

Such water situation may have been causing harmful effect on physical and psychological health

of people and also impeding their daily social and economic activities.

A SATREPS (Science and Technology Research Partnership for Sustainable Development) project

“Hydro-microbial approach for water security in Kathmandu Valley” (Project manager: Futaba

Kazama, University of Yamanashi and Narendra Man Shakya, Tribhuvan University) jointly

funded by Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) and Japan International Cooperation

Agency (JICA) has launched in 2014. Objectives of this project are to create water insecurity maps

of the valley in terms of water scarcity and chemical and microbial contamination and to develop

and provide water treatment systems in some water insecure areas based on the maps. Our group,

social and economic evaluation group, of the project conducted a wide scale household survey on

water related issues in household. The data are being used in the project as a basis for evaluating

water insecurity and for clarifying social and economic issues caused by the water insecurity.

The survey was conducted before the Gorkha Earthquake and similar surveys have been ongoing

after the earthquake both in dry and wet seasons. This report shows the summary of the results of

the first survey mainly on the present situation of water source, availability, handling in households,

cost etc., and the results of the following surveys will be published sequentially. The data in the

current issue would be useful to understand the water problems in the Kathmandu Valley just

before the earthquake.

Prof. Junko Shindo

Social and economic evaluation group

SATREPS “Hydro-microbial approach for water security in Kathmandu Valley” Project


Acronyms and abbreviation

ADB Asian Development Bank

APWF Asia-Pacific Water Forum

CBS Central Bureau of Statistics

GEQ Gorkha Earthquake

HH Household

JICA Japan International Cooperation Agency

JST Japan Science and Technology Agency

KMC Kathmandu Metropolitan City

KrM Kritipur Municipality

KUKL Kathmandu Upatyaka Khanepani Limited

LPCD Liter per capita per day

LSMC Lalitpur Sub-metropolitan city

MDG Millennium Development Goal

MLD Million liters per day

NRs Nepali Rupees

PPS Proability Proportional to household size

TM Thimi Municipality

UN United Nations

UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund

UY University of Yamanashi

WHO World Health Organization

WTP Willingness to pay


Acknowledgement

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)

and Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) for funding the project. We respect the timely

help and support from group leaders of all working groups under this project; Prof. Narendra M.

Shakya, Dr. Hiroshi Ishidaira, Prof. Suresh D. Shrestha, Dr. Takashi Nakamura, Dr. Ishwor M.

Amatya, Dr. Tadashi Toyama, Prof. Jeevan B. Sherchand and Dr. Eiji Haramoto. We are highly

indebt to the interviewers whose effort in negotiating and pursuing the local people to participate

in the survey. We also are thankful to the Japanese and international students of University of

Yamanashi who helped to bring the questionnaires back to Japan. We are also very much grateful

to Mr. Sudeep Hada and Dr. Vishnu P. Pandey for their endless support, suggestions and

participation in the initial phase of the survey. Lastly, we appreciate the participants for providing

their valuable time and information and also appreciate their commitment to engage in this study

in the remaining surveys and follow-up studies.


Summary An imbalance between high water demand and low supply in the Kathmandu Valley has created

water insecurity. This situation has hit households hard with increased stress for water management,

increased cost, loss of time and other uncountable problems. Households approach multiple water

sources in addition to municipal water (piped water) to fulfill their water needs. However, such

‘private self-supply’ often excluded from official statistics and is usually taken as granted by

government. Asian Development Bank (ADB) in 2009 conducted wide scale survey about water

use in the valley but the main aims were to establish the baseline of Kathmandu Upatyaka

Khanepani Limited (KUKL) services and to propose indicators for future performance monitoring

for KUKL rather than to understand dynamics of household water use. In addition, within the span

of 5 years, household KUKL connections have been increased by thousands but the supply is

stagnant. Hence, we strongly believe that the current scenario has been changed a lot from what

had been presented by ADB (2010). Hence, our objective was to reveal current situation of

household water dynamics including use and purpose of multiple water sources, per capita water

consumption, monthly cost spent on water etc. These information will be helpful for several

researchers as well as for different stake holders.

The survey was conducted in Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC), Lalitpur Sub-

metropolitan City (LSMC), Kritipur municipality (KrM) and Thimi municipality (TM) during

January to March 2015. For easiness to report the results, we have divided it into Kathmandu

district (KMC and KrM), Lalitpur disctrict (LSMC) and Bhaktapur district (TM). This was a multi-

stage cluster survey with probability proportional to household size sampling technique. 39

clusters were then selected and around each cluster 30 households were surveyed. A structured

questionnaire was used which included questions about socio-demographic characteristics,

domestic water use behavior, water quality management, hygiene behavior, expenditure on water

and physical symptoms. Total 1139 households were interviewed. Since 9 interviewees were below

15 years of age, they were excluded for data analysis.

In this study, 80% of household lie in Kathmandu district, 7% in Bhaktpur and 13% in

Lalitpur district. Out of 1130 households, 657 (58%) were house owners and 694 (61%) were of

Janajati ethnicity. The mean age of the respondents was 40 years. 76% of the participants were

literate. 66% of the households had private connection from KUKL (piped water) and 52% had

private well. 71% of households used jar water, 31% tanker water, 9% rainwater, and 3% stone

spout. 78% of households received piped water < 4 hours a week. 87% of household used piped

water for cooking, 74% for drinking, 76% for bathing and 70% for laundry. Only 12% households

used groundwater for drinking and 22% for cooking. Groundwater was mainly being used for

bathing (87%) and laundry (94%). 100% of jar water using households use it for drinking and 53%

use it for cooking purpose. 95% and 93% of tanker water using households used it for bathing and

laundry and less number of household used it for drinking and cooking. Surprisingly, none of the

households in Bhaktapur used tanker water. None of the households could rely only on piped water,

and 34% of households were relying on alternative water sources only. The average per capita

water consumption in liter (LPCD) was 121. The average monthly cost for piped water was NRs.


267. The jar water using households were paying monthly NRs. 1145 only for jar water and the

tanker water using households were paying NRs. 4029 monthly only for tanker water.

The results of this study showed that piped water was extremely insufficient for meeting

the daily water needs of the valley residents. Consequently, people are spending comparatively

large amount of money for buying jar water and tanker water to maintain LPCD at 121. Our study,

did not go in details regarding the cost of installation and maintenance of shallow groundwater

wells. But it is not difficult to speculate the economic burden for 52% of households in this study

which used groundwater. Almost all the households relied on alternative water sources, however

the water management stress could be larger to 34% of the households which did not use piped

water because regardless of its performance piped water has been preferred for drinking and

cooking and has been considered as a permanent water source. This study has revealed the water

dynamics of households in dry season. The availability and use of multiple sources can be

interpreted in terms of burden for water management and cost. Hence, future research focusing on

the scenario of water insecurity and the effect of water unavailability on people’s life can be an

interesting aspect to be explored.


Contents Acronyms and abbreviation

Acknowledgement

Summary

List of figure ................................................................................................................................. 10

List of tables .................................................................................................................................. 10

1. Introduction .............................................................................................................................11

2. Methodology .......................................................................................................................... 13

2.1 Study settings: ..................................................................................................................... 13

2.2 Study design: ....................................................................................................................... 13

2.3 Measurements: ..................................................................................................................... 13

3. Results ....................................................................................................................................... 15

3.1. Socio-demographic characteristics of households ............................................................. 15

3.2 Water sources ....................................................................................................................... 19

3.2.1 Piped water.................................................................................................................... 20

3.2.2 Groundwater ................................................................................................................. 21

3.2.3 Jar water ........................................................................................................................ 21

3.2.4 Tanker water .................................................................................................................. 22

3.2.5 Combination of water sources in use ............................................................................ 23

3.3 Water use by house ownership ............................................................................................ 24

3.3 Monthly water cost and willingness to pay ......................................................................... 25

3.4 Water treatment practices .................................................................................................... 27

3.5 Sanitation and hygiene ........................................................................................................ 28

3.6 Health status ........................................................................................................................ 29

4 Conclusion and limitation .......................................................................................................... 30

References ..................................................................................................................................... 31


List of figure

Figure 1. Distributions of survey locations in the Kathmandu Valley .......................................... 14

List of tables Table1. Household composition .................................................................................................... 15

Table 2. Gender of respondents .................................................................................................... 15 Table 3. Number of households and family size ........................................................................... 15 Table 4. House ownership status of participants ........................................................................... 15 Table 5. Ethinicity of households .................................................................................................. 16 Table 6. Age (in years) of respondents .......................................................................................... 16

Table 7. Education of respondents ................................................................................................ 17

Table 8. Occupation ...................................................................................................................... 17

Table 9. Age of household head .................................................................................................... 17 Table 10. Education of household head ........................................................................................ 18 Table 11. Occupation of household head ...................................................................................... 18 Table 12. Household asset possessions ......................................................................................... 19

Table 13. Wealth status based on wealth index ............................................................................. 19 Table 14. Private water source possession .................................................................................... 20

Table 15. Different water sources in use ....................................................................................... 20 Table 16. Piped water supply hours per week ............................................................................... 20 Table 17. Purpose of use of piped water ....................................................................................... 21

Table 18. Purpose of use of groundwater ...................................................................................... 21

Table 19. Frequency of buying jar water ...................................................................................... 22 Table 20. Purpose of jar water use ................................................................................................ 22 Table 21. Frequency of tanker water buying per month ............................................................... 22

Table 22. Purpose of use of tanker water ...................................................................................... 23 Table 23. Combination of water sources in use ............................................................................ 23

Table 24. Water use per day per HH & per capita (Excluding spring and river water) ................ 24 Table 25. Different sources in use by owner and tenants .............................................................. 24 Table 26. Combination of water sources ....................................................................................... 25

Table 27. Water consumption per HH and per capita ................................................................... 25 Table 28. Monthly cost of piped water, jar water, tanker water and total water use ..................... 26

Table 29. Monthly water cost ........................................................................................................ 26 Table 30. Willingness to pay for good quality water .................................................................... 27 Table 31. Treatment of water used for different purposes ............................................................ 27 Table 32. Different water treatment methodologies in practice .................................................... 28

Table 33. Wastewater management category ................................................................................ 28 Table 34. Frequency of cleaning water storage vessels ................................................................ 28 Table 35. Diarrhoea cases last two weeks ..................................................................................... 29 Table 36. Deworming in last 6 months ......................................................................................... 29


1. Introduction Many international organizations are separately or jointly putting effort to reduce water scarcity

that the developing parts of the world are facing. Focusing on Asia and Pacific, Asian Development

Bank (ADB) formulated and initiated ‘Water for All’ policy in 2001. Likewise, United Nations

(UN) initiated several Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and one of them was to halve, by

2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic

sanitation (Goal 7 Target10 c). These efforts have resulted in 90% coverage of use of improved

drinking water sources in South Asia by 2010 which was 18% increment in the level in 1990.

However, the increments were basically made in other improved water sources rather than piped

water.

In South Asia, 65% of population use other improved sources than pipe source (25%)

(UNICEF/WHO 2012). According to report by ADB, the number of people with a tap in the house

(23%) lags significantly behind the overall MDG figures for improved water supply (91%) in

South Asia (ADB/APWF 2013). Moreover, the data for piped water supply did not include duration

of supply i.e. whether the supply is 24 hours a day and 7 days per week or intermittent supply

(ADB/APWF 2013). According to a report on water in Asian cities published by ADB, the cities

in which none of the population had 24 hours piped water availability were Dhaka, Karachi and

Kathmandu whereas it was 1% and 60% in Delhi and Colombo respectively (Andrews & Yniguez

2004). These findings are clearly highlighting that in this region, water sources other than piped

water constitute bigger proportion of household water.

The Kathmandu Valley being capital city is the most urbanized center of Nepal. The city

has seen extensive population growth which increased from 1.6 million in 2001 to 2.5 million by

2011 and the population growth rate of 5.2% was one the highest in South Asia (CBS 2012).

Rapidly grown population has water demand of 320 million liters per day (MLD) but the water

supplying agency could only provide 106 MLD and 76 MLD in wet and dry seasons, respectively

(KUKL 2010). In order to provide water to all connections despite of huge water deficit, the agency

can supply water intermittently to the households. None of the municipal areas in the valley are

receiving piped water 24 hours supply per day while most of them were receiving <4 – 7 hours per

week (ADB 2010). Therefore, like in many Asian cities, alternative water sources constitute large

proportion of domestic water use in the valley.

Other improved sources consist of groundwater (tube well / protected bore well/ protected

dug well), protected spring and rain water while unimproved sources include unprotected dug well,

vendor’s tanker water, unprotected spring water, bottled water, and surface water (WHO/UNICEF

2012). According to a wide scale survey conducted by ADB 2010, 52% of households use

groundwater, 10% use stone spout, 1% use river water, 27% use rainwater, 17% use bottled or jar,

8% use vendor’s tanker and 4% use other sources in the valley. Private self-supply is greatly

practiced by urban dwellers as ‘coping-strategy’ against partially or highly inadequate municipal

water supply (Foster et al. 2010). But, ‘private self-supply’ by households is often excluded from

official statistics and is usually taken as granted by government. In 2009, ADB had conducted a

wide scale survey about water supply status but within the period of 5 years after that survey KUKL


connections has been increased by thousands but the performance of KUKL is rather stagnant. In

a short span of time, water business has flourished tremendously. So, undoubtedly the composition

of water sources being used in households as well the coverage of different water sources might

have experienced a huge shift. Therefore, we felt an urgency to understand as well as to document

current household water use situation of the valley.

This study is a part of “Hydro-microbial approach for water security in Kathmandu Valley”

project of University of Yamanashi (UY) under the program “Science and Technology Research

Partnership for Sustainable Development”, jointly funded by Japan Science and Technology

Agency (JST) and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). It aimed to ensure safe water

supply. One of the aims of this project was to understand different dynamics of household water

use based on a wide scale household survey in the valley in dry and wet seasons.


2. Methodology

2.1 Study settings:

The survey was conducted in Kathmandu metropolitan city (KMC), Lalitpur Sub-metropolitan city

(LSMC), Kritipur municipality (KrM) and Thimi municipality (TM) from January to March, 2015.

KMC and KrM lie Kathmandu district and LSMC in Lalitpur district and TM in Bhaktapur district.

2.2 Study design:

This is a multi-stage cluster survey which includes two steps to select samples. Firstly, 50 clusters

were selected using probability proportional to HH size (PPS) sampling technique. Here, wards in

KMC, LSMC, KrM and TM were considered as clusters. Secondly, 30 HHs were randomly

selected within each selected clusters. For second stage of selection, random geographical location

was chosen and 30 HHs closest to the location were selected. Only one household per house was

surveyed. The total number of clusters was curbed from 50 to 39 because of occurrence of GEQ

on 25th of April 2015. The total number of 1139 HHs were interviewed.

The inclusion criteria of the participants were being above 15 years of age, should be in

the state to give interview physically and mentally, and were willing to provide written informed

consent to participate in the study voluntarily. The trained interviewers conduct face to face

interview with the participants.

2.3 Measurements:

A structured questionnaire was used and data was collected by trained interviewers. The

questionnaire included socio-demographic characteristics, domestic water use behavior, water

quality management, hygiene behavior and physical symptoms.

Domestic water use behavior

The questions in this heading included different sources of domestic water such as municipal

supplied piped water, groundwater, rainwater, jar water, private vendor’s tanker water and other

sources, frequency of use, amount of used, storage, purpose of use and cost. Domestic water in

this study is defined as the water used for drinking, cooking, laundry, bathing, gardening, toilet,

cleaning within the HH by family members.

Hygiene

Regarding hygiene, participants were asked about their behaviour of washing hand before

preparing meal and after toilet, frequency of bathing and clearing water storage vessels.

Physical symptoms

We asked participants if they had any physical symptoms in last two weeks. The symptoms

included headache, fever, cold, vomiting, stomach ache, back-pain, trachoma, typhoid etc.


Covariate variables

Socio-demographic characteristics included age, gender, literacy and occupation of all the

members of the household and ethnicity, and socio-economic status. Ethnicity was based on last

name of the participants which also indicates social hierarchy. Socio-economic status was

determined by constructing wealth index based on household asset possession such as mobile

phone, refrigerator, motorbike, vehicle, invertor etc. (Cordova A 2009).

Figure 1 Distributions of survey locations in the Kathmandu Valley


3. Results

3.1. Socio-demographic characteristics of households

Nine HHs were excluded from the study since their age was below inclusion criteria (15 years).

The district wise composition of HHs were Kathmandu 80.2%, Bhaktapur 6.8% and Lalitpur 13%

(Table 1). The proportion of gender of the respondents was also nearly equal (Table 2). Except in

Bhaktapur, most of the houses have two HHs and in all the districts the average family size was

four (Table 3). Among our respondents, the percentage of owners were higher in Bhaktapur (77%)

whereas that was lower in Lalitpur (44%) (Table 4).

Table1. Household composition

District n %

Kathmandu 906 80.2

Bhaktapur 77 6.8

Lalitpur 147 13.0

Total 1130 100.0

Table 2. Gender of respondents

Male (%) Female (%)

Kathmandu 51.1 48.9

Bhaktapur 46.8 53.2

Lalitpur 46.9 53.1

All 50.3 49.7

Table 3. Number of households and family size

Households Family size

Median (Min-Max)

Bhaktapur 1 (1-7) 4 (1-7)

Kathmandu 2 (1-25) 4 (1-12)

Lalitpur 2 (1-6) 4 (1-8)

All 2 (1-25) 4 (1-12)

Table 4. House ownership status of participants

House ownership

Owner

n (%)

Tenant

n (%)

Proportion of

Owners

Proportion of

tenants

Bhaktapur 59 (77.6) 17 (22.4) 3/4 2/9

Kathmandu 533 (58.8) 373 (41.2) 3/5 2/5

Lalitpur 65 (44.2) 82 (55.8) 4/9 5/9

All 657 (58.2) 427 (41.8) 4/7 3/8


Janajati ethinic group was in higher proportions in our sampling followed by Brahmin and then by

Chettri (Table 5). The percentage of Brahmin ethnic group were higher in Kathmandu and Janajati

were higher in Bhaktapur. The mean age of the respondents were 40 years (Table 6).

Table 5. Ethinicity of households

District Brahmin

n (%)

Chettri

n (%)

Janajati

n (%)

Dalit

n (%)

Don't want to

disclose, n (%)

Bhaktapur 10 (13.0) 5 (6.5) 58 (75.3) 0 (0) 4 (5.2)

Kathmandu 228 (25.2) 130 (14.3) 546 (60.3) 1 (0.1) 1 (0.1)

Lalitpur 26 (17.7) 26 (17.0) 90 (61.2) 2 (1.4) 4 (2.7)

All 264 (23.4) 160 (14.2) 694 (61.4) 3 (0.3) 9 (0.8)

Table 6. Age (in years) of respondents

Mean Median Minimum Maximum

Bhaktapur 42 42 16 75

Kathmandu 41 40 15 87

Lalitpur 35 35 15 78

All 40 39 15 87

Majority of our participants attained university level education or at least attended upper secondary

school (Table 7). The most common occupation of the respondents was business followed by

domestic work and then service (Table 8). The mean age of HH heads was 48 years (Table 9).

Most of them have achieved university level education (Table 10) and common profession was

business followed by service (Table 11). On an average monthly expenditure was NRs 35,319

(1USD = 107.16, as of 2016/08/03). Based on our data, respondents of Lalitpur district had lower

expenditure (NRs. 17187) among others. Five categories of wealth status was constructed based

on wealth quintile and whole data set was used. Since majority of our respondents were from

Kathmandu district all categories had equal proportion of the HHs. The HHs in Lalitpur district

too were distributed almost equally in 5 wealth quintiles. But, in Bhaktapur district, 40% of the

HHs fall in “rich” category, 8% in “very rich” category and remaining HHs were almost equally

divided into remaining categories (Table 13).


Table 7. Education of respondents

Illitera

te

No

formal

educatio

n

Primary

school

(1-5)

Lower

secondar

y (6-9)

Upper

secondar

y (10-

12)

College/Univers

ity

Do not

want

to

disclos

e

missin

g

Bhaktapur 2 (2.6) 10 (13.0) 2 (2.6) 4 (5.2) 20 (26.0) 30 (39.0) 1 (1.3)

8

(10.4)

Kathmandu 44

(4.9)

164

(18.1) 40 (4.4) 60 (6.6)

271

(29.9) 314 (34.7) 8 (0.9) 5 (0.6)

Lalitpur

6 (4.1) 13 (8.8)

18

(12.2) 9 (6.1) 29 (19.7) 65 (44.2) 1 (0.7) 6 (4.1)

All 52(4.6

)

187

(16.5)

60 (5.3) 73 (6.5) 320

(28.3)

409 (36.2) 10

(0.9)

19

(1.7)

Table 8. Occupation

(I) Agricultu

re

Profession/

Manager

Business

skill

Skilled

manual

labor

Unskilled

manual

labor

Service Remitt

ance

Bhaktapur 14 (18.2) 4 (5.2) 14 (18.2) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 15 (19.5) 2 (2.6)

Kathmandu 1 (0.1) 37 (4.1) 378 (41.7) 6 (0.7) 62 (6.8) 128 (14.1) 4 (0.4)

Lalitpur 4 (2.7) 2 (1.4) 41 (27.9) 3 (2.0) 3 (2.0) 29 (19.7) 1 (0.7)

All 19 (1.7) 43 (3.8) 433 (38.3) 9 (0.8) 65 (5.8) 172 (15.2) 7 (0.6)

(II) Domestic

work Student House wife Retired No job missing

Bhaktapur 12 (15.6) 5 (6.5) 1 (1.3) 0 (0.0) 2 (2.6) 8 (10.4)

Kathmandu 167

(18.4) 83 (9.2) 2 (0.2) 9 (1.0) 18 (2.0) 11 (1.2)

Lalitpur 28 (19.0) 34 (23.1) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 2 (1.4)

All 207

(18.3) 122 (10.8) 3 (0.3) 9 (0.8) 20 (1.8) 21(1.9)

Table 9. Age of household head

Age in years Mean Median Minimum Maximum


Kathmandu 48 47 15 87

Lalitpur 44 44 17 78

All 48 46 15 87


Table 10. Education of household head

Illitera

te

No formal

education

Primar

y

school

(1-5)

Lower

second

ary (6-

9)

Upper

secondar

y (10-

12)

College/

Universit

y

Do not

want to

disclose

missing

Bhaktapur 2 (2.6) 8 (10.4) 2 (2.6) 1 (1.3) 17 (22.1) 34 (44.2) 1 (1.3) 12 (15.6)

Kathmandu 49

(5.4)

212

(23.4)

32

(3.5)

52

(5.7)

261

(28.8)

287

(31.7) 8 (0.9) 5 (0.6)

Lalitpur 8 (5.4) 18 912.2) 27

(18.4)

10

(6.8) 29 (19.7) 51 (34.7) 0 (0) 4 (2.7)

All 59

(5.2)

238

(21.1)

61

(5.4)

63

(5.6)

307

(27.2)

372

(32.9) 9 (0.8) 21 (1.9)

Table 11. Occupation of household head

(I) Agriculture Profession/

Manager

Business

skill

Skilled

labor

Unskilled

labor Service Remittance

Bhaktapur 20 (26.0) 2 (2.6) 18 (23.4) 0 (0) 0 (0) 24 (31.2) 3(3.9)

Kathmandu 6(0.7) 46 (5.1) 413 (45.6) 5 (0.6) 98 (10.8) 184 (20.3) 12 (1.3)

Lalitpur 5 (3.4) 1 (0.7) 60 (40.8) 5 (3.4) 4 (2.7) 46 (31.3) 9 (6.1)

All 31 (2.7) 49 (4.3) 491 (43.5) 10 (0.9) 102 (9.0) 254 (22.5) 24 (2.1)

(II) Domestic

work Student House wife Retired No job Missing

Bhaktapur 4 (5.2) 0 (0) 0(0) 0(0) 0 (0) 6 (7.8)

Kathmandu 70 (7.7) 10 (1.1) 0 (0) 9 (1.0) 19 (2.1) 34 (3.8)

Lalitpur 6 (4.1) 5 (3.4) 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) 6 94.1)

All 80 (7.1) 15 (1.3) 0 (0) 9 (0.8) 19 (1.7) 46 (4.1)


Table 12. Household asset possessions

Assets n % Assets n %

Electricity 1126 100 Radio 943 83

TV 1113 98 Mobile 1103 98

Phone 906 80 Fridge 933 83

Bicycle 350 31 Motorbike 814 72

Vehicle 285 25 Computer 912 81

Fan 792 70

Kerosene

stove 380 34

Electric stove 303 27 Gas stove 1093 97

Helper 203 18 Invertor 1126 100

Reliability score = 0.67

Table 13. Wealth status based on wealth index

3.2 Water sources

In this study, piped water connection and presence of groundwater well in respondents’ own

compound were defined as private water source possession. Over all 66% HHs had piped water

connection and 52% HHs had private groundwater inside their compound (Table 14). In

Kathmandu district, 64% HHs had piped water connection and 56% had groundwater well. HHs

in Bhaktapur district had highest piped water connection but lowest groundwater wells. Water

sources other than piped water has been considered as ‘alternative water sources’. In addition to

groundwater, another source that has been widely used was jar water (Table 15). The coverage of

jar water was 72% in Kathmandu and 89% in Lalitpur but it was lowest in Bhaktapur (22%). In

Bhaktapur, tanker water usage was also zero. Its coverage was highest in Lalitpur (75%) but not

that much high in Kathmandu. Among other sources, rain water was also commonly used by HHs.

Other different alternative sources such as stone-spout, river water and spring water were rarely

being used by the participants. The concept of neighbour’s water sources such as piped water or

well water had been first used by ADB (2010). The results showed that people now are not

depending much upon neighbour’s water sources and only 1% of our study participants used public

wells.

N % N % N %

Very poor 184 20 14 18 28 19

Poor 177 20 13 17 37 25

Medium 192 21 13 17 21 14

Rich 173 19 31 40 23 16

Very rich 180 20 6 8 38 26

Total 906 100 77 100 147 100

Kathmandu Bhaktapur Lalitpur


Table 14. Private water source possession

Piped water Groundwater

n % n %

Kathmandu 583 64 508 56


Lalitpur 101 69 62 42

All 750 66 590 52

Table 15. Different water sources in use

Rain water Jar water Tanker water Stone spout Neighbour’s piped

water

n % n % n % n % n %

Kathmandu 45 5 651 72 244 27 31 3 25 2.8

Bhaktapur 7 9 17 22 0 0 0 0 0 0

Lalitpur 47 32 131 89 111 76 1 1 2 1.4

All 99 9 799 71 355 31 32 3 27 2.4

Neighbour’s well

water River Public well Spring Others

n % n % n % n % n %

Kathmandu 14 1.5 1 .1 4 .4 2 .2 3 .3

Bhaktapur 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Lalitpur 17 11.6 0 0 8 5.4 1 .7 0 0

All 31 2.7 1 .1 12 1.1 3 .3 3 .3

3.2.1 Piped water

When the hours of piped water being supplied in the valley is divided into < or > 4 hours per week

category then majority of the households received water < 4 hours per week (Table 16). Only one

household reported receiving water 24 hours a day. Among three districts, almost all the

households of Lalitpur in this study receive only < 4 hours water supply per week.

Table 16. Piped water supply hours per week

Piped water

supply

< 4 hours supply >4 hours supply Continuous supply Don't know

n % n % n % n %

Bhaktapur 36 55 28 42 0 0 2 3

Kathmandu 454 78 118 20 1 0 10 2

Lalitpur 98 97 2 2 0 0 1 1

All 588 78 148 20 1 0 13 2


In Bhaktpur, almost all the households use piped water for drinking, cooking, and bathing (Table

17). Whereas, in Kathmandu and in Lalitpur majority of HHs use it for cooking and bathing. In

both districts only 67% of HHs use piped water for drinking. Over all, piped water is being used

as cooking water source for majority of the HHs. 74% HHs use it for drinking, 76% use it for

bathing and 70% use it for laundry.

Table 17. Purpose of use of piped water

Purposes Kathmandu Bhaktapur Lalitpur All

n % n % n % n %

Drinking 380 67 62 94 98 67 540 74

Cooking 476 84 62 94 98 98 636 87

Bathing 412 73 60 91 87 87 559 76

Laundry 390 69 52 79 70 70 512 70

Cleaning 362 64 29 44 37 37 428 58

Gardening 234 43 6 9 10 10 250 35

Other

purposes 164 30 0 0 2 2 166 24

3.2.2 Groundwater

Groundwater is mainly being used for laundry, bathing, and house cleaning (Table 18). Only

around 12% HHs use it for drinking and 22% for cooking. Compare to Lalitpur and Kathmandu,

use of groundwater for drinking and cooking seemed to be higher and that for bathing, laundry and

cleaning seemed to be lower in Bhaktapur.

Table 18. Purpose of use of groundwater

Purposes Kathmandu Bhaktapur Lalitpur All

n % n % n % n %

Drinking 59 12 6 30 5 8 70 12

Cooking 113 22 6 30 10 17 129 22

Bathing 446 88 10 50 55 93 511 87

Laundry 484 95 13 65 54 92 551 94

Cleaning 488 96 15 75 55 93 558 95

Gardening 364 72 11 55 22 37 397 68

Other

purposes

279 55 1 5 11 19 291 50

3.2.3 Jar water

Jar water is very widely used water source specially used for drinking purpose. In Kathmandu,

each HH buy jar water on an average of 6.4 times per week which is 4.5 and 4.1 for Bhaktapur and

Lalitpur, respectively (Table 19). Over all, people buy 6 jars of water per week. Among those who

use jar water, almost all use for drinking and around half proportion use for cooking (Table 20).


Table 19. Frequency of buying jar water

Table 20. Purpose of jar water use

Districts Drinking Cooking

n % n %

Kathmandu 645 100 328 51


Lalitpur 131 89 82 63

All 793 100 420 53

3.2.4 Tanker water

Tanker water is bought nearly two times per month (Table 21). Surprisingly, none of the HHs in

Bhaktapur in this study used tanker water. In Kathmandu, among those who used tanker water use

it mainly for bathing, laundry and cleaning (Table 22). Only half of those HHs which used tanker

water, used it for cooking purpose. But almost all of the HHs in Lalitpur use it for cooking. In

Kathmandu, 30% use it for drinking but in Lalitpur that value reached to 84%.

Table 21. Frequency of tanker water buying per month

District Tanker water frequency/ month

Mean (SD) Median

Kathmandu 1.9 (1.1) 2.0

Bhaktapur 0 0

Lalitpur 1.7 (0.9) 2.0

All 1.9 (1.0) 2.0

Note: Frequency >4/ month omitted in analysis; n/N = 68/354;

District Jar water frequency/ week

Mean (SD) Median

Kathmandu 6.4 (3.6) 7.0

Bhaktapur 4.5 (2.4) 4.0

Lalitpur 4.1 (3.9) 3.0

All 6.0 (3.7) 7.0


Table 22. Purpose of use of tanker water

Purposes Kathmandu Lalitpur All

n % n % n %

Drinking 73 30 93 84 166 47

Cooking 130 53 102 92 232 66

Bathing 225 93 110 99 335 95

Laundry 225 93 103 93 328 93

Cleaning 216 89 85 77 301 85

Gardening 159 65 26 23 185 52

Other purposes 131 54 22 20 153 43

Bhaktapur: no tanker water users

3.2.5 Combination of water sources in use

The concept of categorizing the use of different water sources into three was used by ADB (2010).

Here, improved is defined as using piped water only, alternative meant sources other than piped

water. None of the HHs depend totally in Kathmandu whereas it was 4% in Bhaktapur and 1% in

Lalitpur (Table 23). In contrast, 36%, 14% and 31% HHs in Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and Lalitpur,

respectively, use alternative source only.

Table 23. Combination of water sources in use

Water use Improved only Improved and alternative Alternative only

n % n % n %

Kathmandu 0 0 583 64 323 36

Bhaktapur 3 4 63 82 11 14

Lalitpur 2 1 99 67 46 31

All 5 0 745 66 380 34

Improve: Piped water; Alternative: Groundwater, jar water, tanker water, rain water, spring water, stone spout, and river water

Water consumption in this study is based on piped water, groundwater, jar water and tanker water.

Over all, mean water consumption per HH was 436 L/ day (Table 24). Highest volume of water

consumption was in Kathmandu followed by Bhaktapur and then by Lalitpur. Highest water

consumption per capita (LPCD) was in Bhaktapur. Both in Kathmandu and in Bhaktapur, LPCD

exceeded optimum level (100 L) as defined by Howard & Batram (2003) but that was at the brink

of the level for Lalitpur. It showed that although there is very poor provision of water by the utility,

people somehow are managing to access for the optimal level of the water they need even in dry

season. However, the quality of the water being used is uncertain and it will be interesting to know

the consumption pattern difference in wet season.


Table 24. Water use per day per HH & per capita (Excluding spring and river water)

Water use per

household per

day in litres

Water use per

capita per day in

litres (LPCD)

Bhaktapur

n = 77 Mean 385 162

Median 300 80

Kathmandu

n = 906 Mean 458 122

Median 320 80

Lalitpur

n=147 Mean 329 96

Median 233 63

All

N = 1130 Mean 436 121

Median 291 80

3.3 Water use by house ownership

ADB (2010) reported significant differences in the water sources and amount of water used by

owners and tenants. In this study, the percentage of tenants using groundwater, rainwater, jar water,

neighbour’s well and public well were slightly higher than that of owners (Table 25). Whereas, the

percentage of owners using tanker water and stone spout were slightly higher than that of tenants.

However, equal percentage of owner and tenants were depending on alternative water source only

(Table 26).

Table 25. Different sources in use by owner and tenants

Ownership Piped water Groundwater Rainwater Jar water Tanker water

N % N % N % N % N %

Owner 435 66.2 328 49.9 46 7.0 441 67.1 223 33.9

Tenant 314 66.5 262 55.5 49 10.4 358 75.8 132 28.0

Ownership Neighbor's

piped water

Neighbor's

well water

Stone spout

water Public well Spring water

N % N % N % N % N %

Owner 15 2.3 14 2.1 22 3.3 5 .8 1 0.2

Tenant 12 2.5 17 3.6 10 2.1 7 1.5 2 0.4


Table 26. Combination of water sources

Ownership Owner Tenant

n % n %

Improved water only 4 .6 1 .2

Improved and

alternative water only 431 65.6 313 66.3

Alternative only 222 33.8 158 33.5

Table 27. Water consumption per HH and per capita

Ownership of

house

Water consumption (L/ day)

Per capita

Owner (n = 657)

Mean 125

Median 88

SD 111

Tenant (n = 472)

Mean 116

Median 56

SD 171

p-value > 0.05 (Independent sample t-test)

Although slight differences on coverage of different water sources were seen between owner and

tenants, mean water consumption per capita were not different significantly (p-value > 0.05) (Table

27).

3.3 Monthly water cost and willingness to pay

The mean monthly cost for piped water, jar water and tanker water were NRs. 267, NRs. 1145 and

NRs. 4029 respectively (Table 28). The mean monthly cost for HHs in Bhaktapur was NRs. 261

and NRs. 1434 for piped water and jar water respectively. NRs. 4507 per month has been paid by

HHs in Kathmandu for tanker water. And, HHs in Lalitpur paid NRs. 331 for piped water.


Table 28. Monthly cost of piped water, jar water, tanker water and total water use

Piped water

cost/month

Jar water

cost/month

Tanker water

cost/ month

Bhaktapur Valid cases 66 17 0

n = 77 Mean (NRs) 261 1434 0

Median (NRs) 300 1200 0

Kathmandu Valid cases 556 651 243

n = 906 Mean (NRs) 257 1180 4507

Median (NRs) 150 1260 2700

Lalitpur Valid cases 96 131 111

n=147 Mean (NRs) 331 933 2981

Median (NRs) 200 600 2000

All Valid cases 718 799 354

N = 1130 Mean (NRs) 267 1145 4029

Median (NRs) 150 1120 2400

N or n = valid cases + missing cases

Table 29. Monthly water cost

Category Summary Monthly cost (NRs.)

Kathmandu Mean 1579

Median 1400

Std. Deviation 1509

Bhaktapur Mean 374

Median 300

Std. Deviation 404

Lalitpur Mean 2379

Median 2010

Std. Deviation 1670

Owner Mean 1694

Median 1400

Std. Deviation 1632

Tenant Mean 1482

Median 1365

Std. Deviation 1399

All Mean 1607

Median 1400

Std. Deviation 1544

In this study, the mean monthly cost for water paid by the participants were NRs. 1607 (Table 29).

The monthly cost of water paid by HHs has been categorized by district and ownership of house.

HHs in Bhaktapur paid only NRs. 374 monthly whereas HHs in Lalitpur paid NRs. 2379. Low


monthly water cost for Bhaktpur might be because tanker water use was none and less percentage

of HHs used jar water (Table 15). The difference in monthly cost between owners and tenants was

also not very big.

Table 30. Willingness to pay for good quality water

Willingness to Pay (NRs.)

Kathmandu Bhaktapur Lalitpur All

Mean 515 494 378 496

Median 300 400 250 300

Std.

Deviation 712 853 408 690

The willingness to pay (WTP) for good quality water was not very high compared to the monthly

cost they are spending for water (Table 30). Maximum mean WTP was reported by HHs in

Kathmandu which as NRs. 515.

3.4 Water treatment practices

Almost all HHs treat drinking water (Table 31). Only 20% HHs treat water used for cooking, 10%

treat water used for vegetable washing and brushing teeth. Nearly 4% HHs used water for bathing

purpose too. Among the different types of methods used for treating drinking, cooking, vegetable

washing and teeth brushing water, filtering, using ceramic filter, was the widely adapted method

(Table 32). For treating drinking water, 44% of HHs use more than one type of treatment method,

12% of HHs boil only, 2% HHs used electric filter only and 2% HHs used Chlorine/ Alum/ Potash

only. For treating cooking water, 23% HHs use more than one type of treatment method. 9% HHs

use chemicals, 6% HHs use boiling, 4% HHs use domestic treatment plant for treating water used

for cooking. For bathing, 50% HHs used chemical treatment method.

Table 31. Treatment of water used for different purposes

Treatment No Yes missing

Purpose n % n % n %

Drinking 178 15.8 947 83.8 5 0.4

Cooking 889 78.7 228 20.2 13 1.2

Vegetable wash 1001 88.6 115 10.2 14 1.2

Brushing teeth 1008 89.2 108 9.6 14 1.2

Bathing 1074 95.0 42 3.7 14 1.2

Other purposes 1089 96.4 24 2.1 17 1.5


Table 32. Different water treatment methodologies in practice

Method of treatments Drinking Cooking

Veg

washing

Brushing

teeth Bathing Others

n % n % n % n % n % n %

Filtering (Ceramic

filter) 371 40 127 57 79 71 68 74 13 33 6 26

Boiling 113 12 14 6 2 2 - - 3 8 - -

Electric filter 21 2 2 1 1 1 - - 2 5 1 4

Chlorine/Alum/Potash 16 2 20 9 19 17 18 20 20 50 16 70

Domestic treatment

plant 3 0 9 4 4 4 6 7 2 5 - -

More than one type 412 44 52 23 6 5 - - - - - -

Total 936 100 224 100 111 100 92 100 40 100 23 100

3.5 Sanitation and hygiene

In this sub-heading the data on wastewater management practice and cleaning frequency of water

storage vessels were included. The HHs which were connected to sewer were 96% and 4% still

flush their waste to septic tank or pit (Table 33). Less than 60% of HHs in both Bhaktapur and

Lalitpur were connected to sewer and around 40% had septic tank or pit.

Hygiene behaviour such as cleaning of storage vessel has been directly linked with risk of

diarrhoeal diseases. 81% of HHs clean the storage vessels every day. 14% clean them on weekly

basis and 4% on monthly basis as well (Table 34).

Table 33. Wastewater management category

Flush to piped

sewer

Flush to septic

tank/pit

Flus to

somewhere Missing

n % n % n % n %

Kathmandu 868 96 36 4 0 0 2 0

Bhaktapur 44 57 33 43 0 0 0 0

Lalitpur 86 59 54 37 3 2 4 3

All 998 88 123 11 3 0 6 1

Table 34. Frequency of cleaning water storage vessels

n %

Yearly 1.0 .1

Monthly 48.0 4.2

Weekly 154.0 13.6

Daily 916.0 81.1

Never 6.0 .5

Missing 5.0 .4


3.6 Health status

The percentage of HHs reporting physical illness in this study was 11%. These physical symptoms

were related with water such as back pain, stomach ache, scabies, trachoma etc. Only 1.6% HHs

reported that at least one of their family member experience diarrheoa in last two weeks (Table

35). The number of cases were none for Bhaktapur, 11 (1.2%) for Kathmandu and 7 (4.8%) for

Lalitpur district. 41% HHs in Bhakatpur did deworming in last 6 months and the percentage was

19 for Kathmandu and 20 for Lalitpur (Table 36).

Table 35. Diarrhoea cases last two weeks

District Frequency Percent

Bhaktapur 0 0.0

Kathmandu 11 1.2

Lalitpur 7 4.8

All 18 1.6

Table 36. Deworming in last 6 months

District Frequency Percent

Bhaktapur 32 41.6

Kathmandu 173 19.2

Lalitpur 30 20.4

All 235 20.8


4. Conclusion and limitation

This study assessed different dynamics of HH water use in dry season in the Kathmandu Valley

which is undergoing a severe water scarcity. After ADB report (2010), this is the first wide scale

HH survey in the Kathmandu Valley. The uniqueness of this study lies in the vision of bringing the

information about HH water dynamics on to the surface. Per capita water consumption had always

been an issue of debate due to lack of detailed information. In addition, in this growing water

market, pattern of water buying and the cost associated will be an interesting information for

several researchers as well as to different stake holders. This report tried to estimate HH

expenditure in water only. Similarly, this study added facts and figures about water treatment

practices, sanitation and hygiene practices in HHs and about health situation.

Less than 67% HHs possessed private water source (either piped water or groundwater).

66% HHs have piped water connection and 52% HHs have groundwater well. Among different

alternative water sources, the coverage of jar water was highest (71%) followed by groundwater

and then tanker water (31%). Majority of HHs use jar water for drinking purpose and groundwater

and tanker water for bathing, laundry and cleaning. Piped water was supplied only < 4 hours/ week.

So, basically the demand of large volume water had been full filled either by groundwater or by

tanker water. Among three districts in this study, HHs in Bhaktapur did not rely on tanker water.

On an average, frequency of buying jar water and tanker water were 6/ per week and 2/ month

respectively. The estimated mean LPCD in this study was 121. The mean monthly expenditure in

water was NRs. 1607 but the mean WTP for good quality water was 3 times lower than this

expenditure.

Majority of HHs treat drinking water and mostly used treatment methods were with filter

(40%) or more than one type of methods (44%). It is found that some percentage of HHs treat

water for cooking and for washing vegetables too and the most common treatment method was

filtering. However, those HHs which responded that they treat water for bathing, majority have

reported treating it by chemical method. 88% of HHs were connected to sewer lines. 81% of HHs

clean their water storing vessels daily. The percentage of HHs reporting diarrhoea were only 1.6%.

The findings of every study should be interpreted in the light of some limitations. One

limitation of this study is related to little ambiguity in information related to tanker water amount

used by HHs. Since several sequential similar surveys are ongoing we look forward to revise and

curb the before mentioned limitation and release more revised data in near future. Apart of such

limitation, our study has unveiled different dynamics of rarely studied HH water consumption

aspect. Our team hopes that these data will be helpful in decision making for betterment of the

water sector in the Kathmandu Valley and we recommend further researches on the scenario of

water insecurity and the effect of water unavailability on people’s life.


References

ADB. 2010. Kathmandu Valley Water Supply and Waste Water System Improvement Project. Asian

Development Bank. Kathmandu, Nepal.

ADB/APWF. 2013. Asian Water Development Outlook 2013 – Measuring water security in Asia

and the Pacific. Asian Development Bank, Phillipines.

Andrews, CT, & Yniguez, CE. 2004. Water in Asian Cities: Utilities' performance and civil society

views. Asian Development Bank, Vol. 10.

CBS. 2012. National Population and Housing Census 2011(Village Development Committee /

Municipality). Central Bureau of Statistics, Government of Nepal, Kathmandu, Nepal.

Cordova A. 2009. Methodological Note: Measuring relative wealth using household asset

indicators. Latin American Public Opinion Project, “Insights” series.

Howard G, Batram J, World Health Organization. Water Sanitation and Health Team. 2003.

Domestic Water Quantity, Service Level and Health. World Health Organization, Geneva.

KUKL. 2010. KUKL - At a Glance, Third Anniversary. Kathmandu Upatyaka Khanepani Limited,

Kathmandu, Nepal.

UNICEF/WHO. 2012. Progress on Drinking Water and Sanitation: 2012 Update. UNICEF and

World Health Organization, United States of America.

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